Fazil Say (14/01/1970), a Turkish composer. Born in 1970 in Ankara, Turkey, Fazil Say studied piano and composition at the Ankara State Conservatory. At the age of seventeen he was awarded a scholarship that enabled him to study for five years with David Levine at the Robert Schumann Institute in Düsseldorf. From 1992 to 1995 he continued his studies at the Berlin Conservatory. In 1994 he was the winner of the Young Concert Artists International Auditions, which gave a rapid start to his international career.
Fazil Say is just as much a composer as he is a pianist. He wrote the work Black Hymns at the age of sixteen. In 1996 his second piano concerto Silk Road was given its first performance in Boston. Fazil Say played the latter work more than a dozen times in the course of the 2003/04 season.
His oratorio Nazim, based on poems by the famous Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet and commissioned by the Turkish Ministry of Culture, was premiered in Ankara in 2001 in the presence of Turkeys President. Say gave the world premiere of his Piano Concerto No. 3 (commissioned by Radio France and Kurt Masur) in Paris with the Orchestre National de France under Eliahu Inbal in January 2002, to great public and critical acclaim. Say was artist in Residence with Radio France in 2003 and 2005, with Musikfest Bremen in 2005 and Konzerthaus Dortmund in 2007. His oratorio Requiem for Metin Altiok was premiered in 2003 at the Istanbul Festival before an audience of 5000. In May 2005 he gave the premiere of his Fourth Piano Concerto, commissioned by ETH Zürich, in Lucerne. He has composed highly virtuosic adaptations for piano and orchestra of such works as Mozarts Rondo alla turca and Paganini Jazz.
The city of Vienna has commissioned the ballet Patara for Mozart Year 2006. His most recent works include a Salzburg Festival 2006 commission, Inside Serail for piano, and a symphony on the occation of the 100th anniversary of soccer club Fenerbahçe Istanbul in March 2007.
His first violin concerto 1001 Nights in the Harem has been premiered in February 2008 with Patricia Kopatchinskaja and John Axelrod conducting the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra